If you’ve known me for a while then you know that one of my main goals for life is to leave Arizona and plant roots on the East Coast. As much as I love my hometown, I want to leave its confines and let it be “my hometown.” So, when college admissions season ran me over and left me for dead, there was an atmosphere of disappointment and apathy that covered the excitement and anticipation of college.
To be completely honest, I hated the fact that I was staying in state. I felt dejected and like I had failed myself in a way. I told everyone around me for years and years that I was going to the East Coast, that I was going to get out of Arizona and yet here I was attending a state school roughly 20 minutes away from home. It was the lesser of the three evils, my options at the end of the day were: Tucson, Phoenix, or Tempe, and only one of those places didn't make me want to cry.
I know it sounds like I’m being dramatic and I am, but there’s something sobering about settling for staying in-state that makes you feel kind of sad when you think about it too much. Most people assume I wanted to stay in-state, because if I didn’t then why was I here. I hate having to tell them that Arizona was the last place I wanted to be and I held a bit of resentment towards it. I hate the fact that I don’t get to have the same kind of “first time” experience that everyone else gets to have in college. Yes it’s all new but at the same time it’s all the same.
The restaurants, the weather, the scenery, the people, it’s all the same, even being in a different city, it’s only 30 minutes away. This is such a champagne problem and I’m aware of that, the fact that I even get to experience college and a higher education in any capacity should be enough for me. And I feel guilty that it isn’t.
I feel guilty for the fact that I wish I could transfer to somewhere new, but the thought of having to do the first year all over again makes me cringe. I don’t want to have to experience all of the lonliness and isolation that came with my first year no matter how much fun I’ve had. I hate that I want to leave because no matter how shitty I feel at times, I am also living my best life.
But I can’t look back now and start to feel regret for a time I’m living through now. I am making the best of my situation and I am doing well considering everything at hand, so while no, I didn’t want to stay in-state, I am okay that I am in-state.